Sarah Palin on Jobs

Republican Governor (AK); 2008 nominee for Vice President

8% unemployment rate doesn't tell the story of the pain

I have news for the permanent political class in Washington. While they're busy worrying about their own political future, things are bad out here. Nearly 8% unemployment rate.
It doesn't begin to capture how bad things are. Even in the dismal rates announced of .1% economic growth, that doesn't tell the story of the pain that Americans feel.

Our president fancies himself as the champion of the Middle Class, yet since he came on scene, even those lucky enough to have a job, they're working more for less.
The median income for families has dropped over $5,000.00 since '07, even as we work longer and longer hours. And job creators are being punished. Tell me how does punishing the job creators, create more jobs?

Business advocate but also a union member

[Palin describes herself "as a proud former union member and the wife, daughter, and sister of union members"]

Her seeming contradictions hold wider import. She is a big business advocate and a union member.
She is a patriotic American and yet is married to a man who once advocated independence for Alaska. She is a Republican and yet helped send corrupt Republicans to prison.

Unemployment is higher than promised, and growing

The White House can't even tell us how many jobs were actually created. Depending on who you ask, it is anywhere from thousands to two million. But one number we are sure of is the unemployment number. That is 9.7, which is well above the 8% mark that
we were promised our stimulus package would go to avoid. And unemployment now is 16.5%. You have got all these people who have given up. and they are not even enrolling in some of these programs. Tough to count them. Is that hope? Nope. It's not hope.

Source: 2010 Tea Party Convention speeches
, Feb 6, 2010

Kill the second stimulus bill disguised as a jobs bill

We need to go further. Cut spending. Don't just simply slow down a spending spree and we've got to axe the plans for a second stimulus when the first hasn't even been measured for any success yet. Kill the plans for the second stimulus and be aware that
now that second stimulus is being referred to as a jobs bill. Now these aren't the only ways to rein in spending, and alone, they're not going to be enough to tackle the insane debt and the deficits that we face. But they are a good way to start.

Source: 2010 Tea Party Convention speeches
, Feb 6, 2010

Husband Todd focused on vo-tech ed for workforce development

When I became governor, Todd devoted himself to workforce development, including vo-tech education designed to get kids excited about real-life work experience and break young men & women free of dependency and the limits it imposes.

Some First Spouses
maintain an office in their state capitols and often travel with an assistant or staff, but Todd did not. Sure, the critics still accuse him of being "The Shadow Governor," but that's because they couldn't' find anything legitimate to criticize him about

Source: Going Rogue, by Sarah Palin, p.136
, Nov 17, 2009

Bailout should be about job creation, not just healthcare

I, like every American I'm speaking with, we're all about this position that we have been put in, where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out.
But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. It's got to be about job creation, too.
Shoring up our economy, and getting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade. We have got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive scar
We've got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation." -

Source: ABC Nightly News
, Sep 25, 2008

Closed last factory in Wasilla in 2007

Palin’s nostalgia for small farms & factories can’t be tied to Wasilla. Until recently, the only thing that resembled a factory in the area was a cooperative called Mat-Maid dairy. After 40 years of churning milk, cream and yogurt, the place was shuttere
in 2007-by Governor Palin’s handpicked board in charge of running the dairy. It’s now a self-storage unit. There’s still a little vegetable and hay farming done in Wasilla, but much of the agricultural land has given way to strip malls & subdivisions.

Source: Amanda Coyne in Newsweek
, Sep 22, 2008

Alaska Construction Academy: 2,520 students learn skills

We have some great news to share about a successful partnership involving the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development. This venture produced the Alaska Construction Academy, and now, more than 2,300 middle and high school students and
320 adults are learning new skills--such as carpentry, plumbing, electrical, welding and drywall finishing. The academy started as a pilot program in Anchorage to attract and train young people and adults to first jobs in the Alaska construction industry

This program has been so successful, more will follow elsewhere statewide. Graduates will help fill the 1,000 construction jobs that are needed annually.

Out of the first group of 113 Anchorage adult graduates, 77% were hired and increased their
earnings 40% in the two quarters following their training. Adult classes are offered at various times, based on community employer needs, and will be expanded to include weatherization programs.

Leverage job-training dollars thru voc-tech curriculum

WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT - I will leverage job-training dollars through efficiencies in government, private sector partnerships, and responsible investments in job training opportunities that result in good jobs for Alaskans.
I look forward to working with a cross section of citizen advisors who represent private sector employers’ educational institutions, union and non-union training programs and other workforce development professionals on the Alaska Workforce
Investment Board. With their advice, we can meet the rapidly growing need for trained workers. I am a strong proponent of vocational and technical curriculum in our schools and will focus on this area to get our workforce ready for the future.
I don’t want to see an importation of Alaska’s workforce when we have untapped talent here in the state, anxious for training and anxious for the opportunity to work.

Focus Workforce Investment Board on vocational careers

Workforce Readiness for Students: Alaska’s youth have tremendous career opportunities in the skilled trades if they have adequate training. I will charge the Alaska Workforce Investment
Board (AWIB) with drawing upon its considerable expertise to develop a pilot program aimed at increasing awareness of vocational career opportunities for our younger students through a partnership with industries facing worker shortages.
The pilot will be industry-focused and include a streamlined and efficient administrative process to encourage industry participation.
It will consider children’s safety first and be designed with exciting field trips and industry-based learning activities.

Praised the Red Dog zinc mine for bringing rural jobs

The major candidates for governor can’t go anywhere in Alaska without discussing Pebble, the gigantic mineral, copper and gold deposit north of Iliamna. Following are the candidates’ positions.

Knowles claims strong opposition. At a resource industry
forum in Anchorage, Knowles said he finds the Pebble project “terrifying.” Knowles said recently, “The scale of it is so enormous. On its merits, (Pebble) is an unacceptable risk.”

Palin is reserving judgment on Pebble, for now. On the Pebble project,
Palin says she would not put one resource, such as the Bristol Bay salmon fishery, at risk “for another resource.”

In recent debates, Palin has rarely commented on individual mines, though she praised the Red Dog zinc mine near
Kotzebue for bringing jobs to rural Alaska.

Department of Fish and Game is under-funded

Knowles & Palin, courting the fish crowd is de rigueur. More than 20,000 commercial fishermen chase fish. More than 200,000 residents hold sportfishing licenses. And 83% of rural households have subsistence fishing permits.

All the candidates say the
Alaska Department of Fish and Game is underfunded, lacking enough people and tools to study and protect the fish and their habitat.

All also promise to appoint people to the state Board of Fisheries and the North Pacific
Council who will put the health of fish stocks first and won’t let politics interfere.

Knowles vows he won’t appoint “lightning rods,” but his commercial critics argue he did as governor, naming people with sportfishing or environmental bents such as
Kenai River sportfishing kingpin Bob Penney.

“What I was trying to do was bring a real balance,” Knowles said. Indeed, the makeup of the board and council have at times tilted heavily toward commercial fishing interests.